erlin’s world-renowned ensemble of
neoclassical buildings, clustered on the little Museum
Island on the River Spree, is preparing to welcome
a new addition. Designed by David Chipperfield
Architects, the James-Simon-Galerie will serve as
a visitors’ centre for all five museums on the island,
providing direct access to the Pergamon Museum
(home to such treasures as the Ishtar Gate and the
Pergamon Altar) and the Neues Museum (home
to the Egyptian collection, including that iconic bust
of Queen Nefertiti). The latter was renovated by
Chipperfield in 2009 and served as the venue for our
2009 Architects’ Directory shoot (W*125). The visitors’
centre is part of an extensive master plan that will
eventually see the rest of the museums connected
through a basement-level ‘archaeological promenade’
due for completion in 2025/26.
The primary function of the James-Simon-Galerie,
explains Urs Vogt, Chipperfield’s project architect,
‘is to take the load of mass tourism’ and accommodate
a projected peak rate of 10,000 visitors per day.
Its other function is as a 24/7 public space. Hence,
the architects pushed the technical functions of the
building down into the basement, leaving the top
as a ‘landscape, which connects views from the city
to the island and back the other way’.
A long colonnade of slender pillars on top of the
building is a stripped-down echo of the extensive
19th-century colonnades designed by Friedrich August
Stüler on the rest of the island. Its visual dominance
underscores the structure’s role as a simultaneously
functional, connective and public space.B
The monolithic exterior of the building, in precast,
sandblasted concrete with an aggregate of local marble
and sand, is both luxurious and deceptively simple.
As you move into the lobby from the main entrance,
you enter an equally spare interior of warm grey
cast-in-place concrete and shellbearing limestone floors
softened by heavy, monotone, floor-to-ceiling wool
curtains. The glazed café area, recessed within the
raised colonnade, has a sound-absorbing copper mesh
ceiling and bronze window frames. Further back is the
main desk area, featuring an impressive translucent
opaque ‘window’ made from Greek marble. From here,
a broad flight of stairs leads down into the building’s
ground floor, with its shop and cloakrooms, and
then into the basement, which contains a 300-seat
auditorium, a 650 sq m shared exhibition space, and
the underground entrances to the future ‘promenade’.
The most impressive thing about the James-Simon-
Galerie is the way the architects have managed to
combine such an incredible number of needs in such
a highly sensitive location, and still make a rather lovely
building. It may appear simple, but the complexity
is impressive, not least its structural solutions: the
island is basically a swamp and the entire building is
sitting on 1,200 micropiles up to 50m long. There are
visual axes everywhere, connecting outside/inside,
old/new, one museum to the next, the city and the
interior. ‘You can walk through the whole building
without actually opening a door, except for the
auditorium – everything is open,’ says Vogt, with not
a little pride. And proud he can be because with this
building, he and the Chipperfield team have walked
that architectural tightrope between the demands
of client and user, aesthetics and function without
pomp but with a lot of aplomb.
The James-Simon-Galerie will open on 12 July 2019;
davidchipperfield.com; museumsinsel-berlin.de. Turn the
page for profiles of 14 of our next-level architecture practices.
See Wallpaper.com for the full Architects’ Directory ∏‘You can walk through the whole building
without opening a door’
ABOVE, A BROAD SET OF STEPS
FROM STREET LEVEL INVITES
YOU NOT JUST TO WALK UP
TO THE MAIN ENTRANCE, BUT
ALSO TO SIT AND TAKE IN THE
VIEW OF THE CITY BEYOND
LEFT, INSIDE, THE FUNCTIONAL
AREAS ARE CLAD IN FRENCH
WALNUT VENEER∑ 077
Architects’ Directory